Zumanity - Review with Pictures

A warning to the sensitive - this post will contain nudity and images that may be considered inappropriate for children or people offended by sexual material. I want to write about the Cirque show Zumanity, which is a sensual cabaret act that contains what some might consider foul language, nudity and explicit mentions and images that suggest sex. So... if you do not wish to see such things then skip this particular post. (I couldn't figure out a way to make this a post that one has to intentionally click on, sorry).

I will confess right off the bat that I didn't really want to see this show. I'm not a fan of pornography or erotica and am one of those people that would just as soon skip the sex scene in movies. That being said, I have to admit I enjoyed Zumanity, which makes me worry that the show pulls its punches for the "white bread can't take the heat so stays out of the kitchen" kind of audience (of which I consider myself a member.) I mean shouldn't I have been shocked or uncomfortable or something?

Here is my experience of the ...er experience. As you enter the theater you get to walk past little peepholes and look at sensual body parts if you like. I looked at them all. I couldn't really tell what I was looking at. The theater inside itself is all decked out in red and designed with an armature like many of the Cirque Theaters.

Here's a better shot. Behind the area where the shot was taken is a glass wall that shows a scarlet covered bed. Before the show started a scantily clad woman in a mohawk came out and lounged on the bed a bit. About this time other characters started to mill around in the stage area.

The show itself is rather tame and sweet-natured for erotica. It desires to please everyone, but in doing so (in my opinion) takes no risks in offending the radically straight heterosexuals of the audience. There is a male kiss buried in the middle of the show, but otherwise the themes and humor are so toned down that it is difficult to be offended. Our hostess, Edie, a transvestite in fishnets with boa and bustier, talks about sex as if it were a chocolate truffle - all antiseptic and clean, wrapped in a nice ribbon and sterile plastic. Jokes are for the most part innocuous and the orgy scene at the end is like some high school fantasy of sweetness and light or the shots at the end of the film that recap the important scenes for each of the characters as a sort of curtain call.

A few characters start to appear on stage before the show proper begins. This includes a Marlene Dietrich look-alike, who comes out and leans on the piano for a while.

This man also comes out - he later does an amazing job twirling a cape. Personally I don't remember the snake, but as with all Cirque shows there is much to keep one distracted.

In the audience, two large sisters make their rounds with silver trays of strawberries. They are scantily clad in French maid costumes and they feed various members of the audience and do humorous schtick. Leaning over to feed some of the patrons, they reveal more than most other patrons might want to see.

Later they come out in other costumes.

We get "show girls" and pagentry as well as stripping and acrobatics.

Our hostess comes out and introduces the topic of the show. She chats with us, seating herself on the piano and swigging a large cocktail.

Edie is very feminine and a lot like the character of Sally Bowles in Cabaret. She also has no visible adam's apple and that was the thing that made me the most uncomfortable (worrying about whether she had had hers shaved - It sounds like a thoroughly painful process.)

There is a kind of a theme or story for this show which starts out about sexual innocence. We meet the satyr and then see a Paris-style nightclub routine with a feather-clad Josephine Baker style dancer. She was amazing! The other thing that made me a bit uncomfortable is that Cirque has a bad tendency of falling into the stereotype of representing "other" in primitive or oriental images. Crimson, the villain in Believe is a wild, demonic Black woman, in Ka our villain is a FuManchu-like man on stilt-shoes, the Satyr here (but evidently not always in the past) symbol of unbridled sexuality as is this character who does the jungle-inspired jazzy Bakeresque dance to represent many of the same things.

That being said, this woman is an amazing dancer and was one of the best performances of the evening.

One of my other favorite parts of the show was this couple who acted like 1960s style swingers and went out into the audience to look for partners. The guy was just so middle class sleazy. The woman was so naively exuberant. They had a segment on teaching people how to "date" that was cute and the woman (who is called Izzy) did such a fantastic job!

Over the course of the evening, we had hula hoops...

...and cheerleader types

... and the famous fish bowl with two women contortionists. (Nudity follows)

These stills suggest how beautiful the human form can be, but in real life I did not feel that way. Instead I suddenly felt that the naked human body was rather silly looking. It did not have the majesty I was expecting. I prefer the full body lyotards that reveal everything and nothing (and although the private parts were covered, I would have liked more form and less substance.)

There is also a" Loss of Innocence" section of the show, there are two brunette ingenues that are sort of Audrey Hepburn look-alikes. The performances are quite lyrical and lovely and although I have never seen nude ballet before there is a section en pointe.

Isn't that Hair-do SO Holly Golightly!?

A more cynical section has a woman perform a pole dance in front of a television showing a football game. Several men sit in their chairs glued to the game and oblivious to the sensual performance given by the very sexy dancer. Our dancer had a colorful mohawk, but was probably the same woman pictured in these shots.

This woman did amazing hula hoop twirling.

This woman did an aerial performance on long ropes that was stunning.

There was a bathtub sequence near the end. Here is our friend the Satyr and the Dietrich look-alike having some good clean fun.

..and one of the saddest performances in the loss of innocence section involved a man straying and doing a pas de deux with a beautiful lithe blonde woman on a set of long scarves while the Audrey Hepburn naive waited hopefully below in the desire that the man would return to her.

There was live music and singing to go along with the dancing.

There were extravagant costumes ...er... head dresses too, so I could feel like I had seen a real Vegas show.

The performance ended with a sort of mild orgy tableau in the round as a kind of curtain call.

Other acts in the show included a masochism number also on a rope performed by a masked redheaded woman and a man in a metal ring doing some incredible feats of strength and turning.

Here is another shot of the cast.

All in all it was a rather silly, but enjoyable show.